Indeed, imbuing such an already expensive armour would then also involve sending adventurers to obtain crazy components and cost the wizard involved at least one point of constitution which was not at all easy to get back in AD&D. There wasn't even an increase of ability scores through level progression, so the point was likely gone for good.
And then in came video games. "Ah crap, the twelfth dagger +1. Let's go back to the village and sell all the scrolls." Of course this impacted player expectations.
Err ... as a rule of thumb, D&D has nothing to do with reality at all.
Plate armor was very widespread in late medieval times, and during the renaissance.
Some plate armor was of course created to insane standards, and super decorated, like the replica one Adam Savage from Mythbusters recently tried on.
But professional soldiers of the time could already afford a full set of plate armor. You wouldnt need to be super rich.
Even regular foot soldiers especially in german regions are shown as already wearing a plate harness, even if they couldnt afford a full set of plate armor.
I don't know how it's handled in Wizards' D&D, but AD&D always included a history lesson and differentiated between Field Plate, Full Plate, and Plate Mail. In that sense, it would depend on the tech-level of your campaign. The affordable steel plate armour you're describing, like munition armour (half-plate in D&D) or cuirass breast plates, didn't arrive on German battlefields until the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), which is the latest era of setting recommended in 2e rules. Earlier depictions often show cheaper varieties from leather. Wikipedia even states that "During the English Civil War (1642–1651), only the wealthiest and physically strongest men could afford this type of armour. [Cuirass]" Thus, if the standard setting is dark ages, crusades, Hundred Years' War or Renaissance, metal plate armour was unaffordable for common soldiers. With the advent of firearms during the Renaissance, plate mail disappeared and then had its own renaissance with the evolution from unwieldy heavy plates of wrought iron to standardised lighter steel versions at the beginning of early modern times. If you're going for that Dark Souls suit that allows you to roll around, climb walls or mount a horse by yourself, you'll have to pay an individually fitted field plate or full plate.
Again, D&D has hardly any relation to reality. It certainly doesnt describe actual history. These terms like "Full Plate", "Half Plate" etc are not used by scientists who study medieval armor, because they have no actual meaning.
Real terms such scientists use are for example Mail, Gambeson, Brigandine, and Plate. Those are the four most important types of medieval armor. They can be freely combined of course. For example early plate armor would be combined with Mail, because it was just a cuirass or even just a breastplate in the beginning.
There is no "tech-level" in reality either. This is literally a gamer term.
Wikipedia is not a reliable source, even less so if you pick random pages and interepret them chaotically.
We think that the first cuirass may have been made of leather because the very word cuirass. Its a french word that relates to leather.
How exactly would one be able to distinguish a leather from a metal cuirass in the 12. century, anyway ? At that time knights would wear a cloth with their crest over their armor.
Nevermind that these are medieval images we talk about; typically drawings in books. Realistic paintings didnt really exist until the Renaissance.
If you had bothered to watch the video I linked you would know that an old man like Adam Savage can very comfortably wear a late Renaissance plate armor.
The 30 years war was a modern war, i.e. a war without knights, and a time of extreme destruction. A third of the population of the Holy Roman Empire perished during this time. A peasant unable to afford plate armor under these conditions isnt surprising. Apparently you have the strange idea that earlier times are always worse than later times.
The plate armor got introduced as the coat of plates in the 12. century, at the same time as the invention of gunpowder. Its height was the 15. and 16. century, when Germany and Italy produced the probably best plate armor ever made. After that war simply changed, so expensive protection for elite warriors became rare. Its end came in the 19. century, when modern guns became much more reliable, able to hit targets at greater distance, and could fire multiple shots before reloading. The concept is still not dead even today though, modern plate armor is made from titanium and combined with materials like kevlar and ceramic plates.
Again why are you talking about something called Dark Souls. I was discussing reality.
All plate armor has to be tailor made. If plate armor doesnt fit exactly, you will pay dearly. Plate armor is made from the same material as weapons. It will not budge. It can very seriously hurt you if it doesnt fit properly.
This debate is about the D&D system, so of course I'm referring to game terms. The game needed some standardisation of terms, so TSR used some typical combinations as standard sets. As I said, I don't know how it's handled in later editions, but in AD&D 2e, you could combine individual pieces of armour to different outcomes and the available gear was at least modelled after historical examples. While Gambeson would be "Padded Armor", Mail, Brigandine and Plate were all terms commonly used in 2nd edition. This is however not to say that earlier editions were supposed to mirror reality in any way. But, the books usually gave you some historical context before saying, for example, how they had to nerf crossbows to keep them balanced for the game.
So, you're saying Wikipedia is no reliable source of information, but one YouTube video is? The steel plate cuirass in my example is a piece of armour that covers the upper torso front and back. It goes back to at least classical antiquity and was initially made of leather. Later they were also made of brass, bronze, cloth, iron and finally steel with modern composite versions, like bullet-proof vests still evolving.
While I can read and type bits and pieces, I don't usually have time to watch a whole 25-minute-video during my break, but the armour they're showing in the video is not a historical piece, but a modern replica which is made of steel. This was not necessarily the case with the originals, and if, we'd be back at the start of this tangent that this type of armour would be something owned by royalty, not used by foot soldiers. Nowhere I said earlier times are worse than later times, but in the portion of history relevant to most D&D settings, it was always a race between armour and projectile, technological progress still taking place today. Before the battle of Crécy, the mounted knight dominated battlefields. Afterwards, he was more at home in competitive sports. Quite similar to what we're currently seeing with expensive tanks being destroyed by cheap drones. So, take the mounted knight and the English longbow, the introduction of lighter but sturdier steel plates, the rifled barrel,...all these were game changers (no pun intended), but as a dungeon master, you will have to make the decision whether you allow firearms or which other equipment is or isn't available, as this will have a massive impact on the style of your campaign. Tech levels may be a game term, but science does something very similar when discussing technological development, for instance, the shift from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic era. One civilisation could reach a more advanced state than its contemporaries, so while these terms give you a rough idea of the historical period they are also descriptions of available technology.
The reference to Dark Souls was because of the idiosyncratic rolling around. Badly fitting or heavy iron armour would not allow that, while even full steel suits were surprisingly functional for their perceived bulk if properly customised to the wearer. You're also right that there was a good chance an incompatible piece of armour could injure you badly.
